


we must away

by drunkonwriting



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, slight Bilbo/Thorin though it can be read as just platonic friendship if you want, which means all the deaths still happen I'M SORRY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-02-09
Packaged: 2018-03-11 07:57:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3319919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drunkonwriting/pseuds/drunkonwriting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“You should not have died,” he whispers to the acorn, because Thorin is not there to listen, will never be there again to listen or to scowl or to make the Company go along with Bilbo’s mad plans.</i>
</p>
<p>Bilbo plants a tree and says goodbye.</p>
<p>Canon-complaint coda to BOFTA.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we must away

**Author's Note:**

> this is literally titled I'M SO SAD in my notes, so. be warned, i guess. sometimes i think about how bilbo felt at the end of bofta, with his friend and leader cut down ruthlessly, and sometimes i think about how thorin fought so tirelessly for a home and a future for his people and _never got to see it_ or how fili was dropped from a mountain or how kili was barely into adulthood and i get REALLY REALLY SAD. this is just an outpouring of that so it's very sentimental and sappy and angsty sorry. 
> 
> read and weep, friends, for you know that i am whenever i have to think about how thorin and his heirs died.

The land is ravaged around the base of the mountain, from when the dragon came.

_Dragonfire leaves no tilling fields_ , as the old stories say. _Wherever it touches, nothing will grow again_. It is like a giant scar against the land, where Smaug breathed. A wound that will heal slowly, if at all. Back when the thought of leaving Erebor was something he dreaded, Bilbo had thought he’d stay on as a gardner and help the land thrive. Now, with it stretched out before him, he can’t imagine how he’d do it. He can’t summon the heart to try.

Bilbo picks his way across this wasteland, as he has for the past three days. The dwarrows all think him mad—the guards watch him warily as he putters around, but they’ve been instructed to leave him be. No doubt as some kind gesture on Balin’s part. Bilbo pays them little mind. He is only one thought now, one goal. 

The patch of soil he needs must be rich, dark, and wide enough to support what he wants to plant as it grows. He finds and discards several lone patches of growable soil before he finds one big enough—tucked in the shadow of the mountain, there’s a whole stretch of thick green grass and dark soil that Smaug must have missed. It is the only green patch in the area. 

Bilbo shudders a little as he sinks to his knees in the thick grass; it is mid-morning, but the grass is still slick with dew. A good growing spot, he thinks. Likely the only one he’ll find in this barren place. 

He reaches into his pocket and plucks out his precious acorn. For a moment, he cradles it in his palm; examines the deep brown hue of its shell, the perfect, uncracked cap. It is a beautiful seed, one that will grow into a healthy, wide tree if the Valar are kind. Bilbo reaches out with a trembling hand to pull up some of the thick grass and dig into the soil underneath it. Once he has a pocket-sized hole made, he moves to drop the acorn in.

For a moment, all he can do is hover over the hole, the acorn dangling uncertainty from his fingers. It takes seconds to slide from his hand, dropping with a soft sound into the dark soil. Bilbo’s hand spasms as he closes it into a fist, drops it back at his side.

“They buried you in the mountain,” he tells the hole, and the acorn inside it. “Balin said—he said that dwarves are made from stone and to stone they go when they are unmade.” He swallows, hard. “You will be buried with your ancestors and with—with Fili and Kili.”

He starts to pile dirt on top of the little hole. He pats down the mound when he’s finished and makes it rain a little with the tin water can around his neck. He will come back every day until he leaves to look after it, and he will leave instructions with Ori when he is gone. 

“You told me—“ He has to swallow several times. “You told me to grow this in the Shire. But I can’t bring it with me, Thorin. So I’ll bury it here, in the shadow of your home, and I hope that it will grow strong and proud.” 

He gives the acorn a little more water. “They spoke at length at your funeral about your bravery in battle,” he says. “About the glory of your death. But I’ll always remember you as a damned arrogant stone-headed fool, Thorin Oakenshield. I’ll never forget how frustrating and stubborn and close-mouthed you were.” He’s shaking a little, though the day is mild and the sun is warm on his back. “But you were the best person I’ve ever known,” he whispers. “And I would’ve followed you anywhere, my king.” His eyes burn and he blinks hard to stem the flow of tears. “My friend.”

Bilbo can see Thorin in front of him as clear as the mountain—the unimpressed tilt to his mouth when Bilbo calls him stone-headed, the softening of his eyes when Bilbo names him king. He thinks of Thorin as Bilbo last saw him; war-wrecked, but clear-eyed and smiling. The fold of his hand over Bilbo’s as Bilbo explained the acorn, the cut of his figure as they lowered him into the stone casket he would sleep in for the rest of time. He thinks of Fili and Kili, smiling at his door, their stern mouths as they were lowered in the caskets next to Thorin’s. 

The line of Durin, forever silenced.

Bilbo’s crying is a quiet, hiccuping thing; tiny shudders run through his shoulders as he bends his head low to the earth, forehead pressed hard against the mound the acorn lies under. Dwarves show love and affection through touching foreheads—Balin told him that once. Bilbo taps his forehead agains the mound and prays that Thorin can feel it in the halls of his Maker. 

“You should not have died,” he whispers to the acorn, because Thorin is not there to listen, will never be there again to listen or to scowl or to make the Company go along with Bilbo’s mad plans. “You stupid, arrogant dwarf, you should have lived to see your kingdom reborn. You and your sister-sons should have sat in that mountain and seen your people home.” 

Kili’s tattered body. Fili being dropped from the top of a cliff like trash, like he was _disposable_. They will never laugh again or exchange the silent conversations of close siblings or bait Bilbo into doing something stupid and reckless and fun. They were so _young_. Bilbo heaves a little at the thought of it, his fingers scrabbling through the grass and catching on loose rocks. 

“I will never forgive you for this, Thorin,” he says. “I will—I will—“ He hiccups and gives in to the sobs, because words have left him. 

He cries for what feels like hours, but when he looks up again, the sun has barely moved. He sits up and then stands, feels like a much older hobbit when his bones creak. His head is oddly clear, as if the crying had allowed something dark to pass from it and left him lighter. He looks down at the wet patch of ground and thinks, a little rueful, that the acorn has had plenty of water to begin growing.

He stands and he looks up at the great mountain above him, the place Thorin Oakenshield had longed for for over a hundred years, the place he had battled back to, the place he had died for. It is a cold peak, lonely against its stretch of sky, but Thorin loved it, so Bilbo finds that he does as well.

Bilbo knows a lot of songs about grief; hobbits even have some, though they prefer merry tunes for drinking and dancing. He knows more from the elves, ones he translated from Sindarin as a younger hobbit. Some from men, who sing them when they get melancholy in their cups. Dwarves, as far as Bilbo knows, have no songs for grief; they prefer drinking songs or battle marches. He thinks back to that first night in Bag End. By the very first hum of that song, he was lost. Everything Thorin or Gandalf said could not convince him, but when he heard the music, heard that _song_ . . . . And it wasn’t the eerie loveliness of it, or the pleasantness of Thorin’s deep voice. It was the longing there. A heart-deep desire for belonging, for home. 

He places his hand on his chest and straightens to his full height. His voice, quavering and unsure, is as far from Thorin’s baritone as possible, but he thinks—he thinks Thorin would appreciate the sentiment, nonetheless.

_“Far over, the Misty Mountains cold . . . .”_

-

In many years time, the land around the mountain grows green again, thick and lush. But though flowers grow, there is only one tree near the base of Erebor—a giant oak that grows in the shadow of the mountain. Though no one can remember how, it has come to be known as ‘Thorin’s Tree,’ named for the dwarf who died to right his wrongs, and everybody knows that it was planted by the brave hobbit who fought to bring the dwarves home. In its shadow, prayers are offered, couples kiss, and the world turns ever on.


End file.
